


Two FBI Agents Walk Into a Bar

by bluebeholder



Category: The Silence of the Lambs (1991), The X-Files
Genre: Female Friendship, Friendship, Gen, I Think This Counts As A Ship Tease, alcohol mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-30
Updated: 2016-07-30
Packaged: 2018-07-28 06:52:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7629310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluebeholder/pseuds/bluebeholder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Exactly what the title says: two of the FBI's most famous agents meet in a bar. It turns out that Clarice Starling and Dana Scully have a lot in common.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Two FBI Agents Walk Into a Bar

**Author's Note:**

> _Silence of the Lambs_ came out in 1991, and _The X-Files_ premiered in 1993. It's entirely plausible that Agent Starling and Agent Scully could have met.
> 
> No, this is not femslash. (Not _yet_ , anyway. Who knows what may appear with enough time?) I may write more about these two. But who knows? I still have to finish my trip to IKEA... :)

The bar was almost empty when FBI Agent Dana Scully walked in. She went to the bar and asked vaguely for something to drink. While she waited for the bartender, she looked around. The place was nice, as a restaurant had to be in downtown D.C. if it wanted to stay open long. Dana had been here before on a date. The food was pretty good, and the building—though old—was modern. It was a bit early. The Friday night rush hadn’t begun yet. The other people who were here were in twos and threes, the seeds of dinner parties. And they mostly weren’t Bureau personnel. 

She hadn’t gone out like this in a while. Not that she didn’t like it, but since she’d started working with Mulder, there just weren’t as many people who she could really stand to be around for very long. Inevitably, conversations drifted around to jokes about little green men and flying saucers. That wouldn’t be too bad—half the time when they were out on cases Dana was making those same jokes in the privacy of her head—but the other part of the conversation was always making fun of “Spooky Mulder”. And she couldn’t put her finger on why that made her so uncomfortable.

Dana sighed and took a sip of her drink, contemplating whether or not she was going to stay long. Coming here had been a mistake. She should just go home. There would be a new X-File soon enough. Mulder would come up with some hare-brained idea about mole men or a government conspiracy or an alien virus. Then it would be back to running around wearing tinfoil hats and sneaking onto military bases. She’d earned her downtime by now.

Just as Dana decided to call it a night, a dark-haired woman slid onto the seat next to her. “Mind if I join you?” she asked.

“No, but I…” Dana’s voice trailed off. She stared at the woman, trying to figure out who she was. It took a moment, but it clicked. “I hope you don’t mind me asking, but are you Clarice Starling?”

The woman looked down with a small smile, pushing her hair behind her ear. “Yes, I am,” she said quietly. She slid a sideways look at Dana. “And if you don’t mind me asking, aren’t you Dana Scully?”

“Yes, I am,” Dana said. “I didn’t think someone like you would have heard of me.”

“Someone famous, you mean?” Starling laughed, still watching Dana. “Funny choice of words from a famous woman like you.”

Dana shook her head. “I’m not famous.”

“You’re the only agent brave enough to work with Spooky Mulder,” Starling said. “Pretty sure that counts for being famous.”

Of course. Of course it came back to that. It always did. Dana pushed her glass away and reached down for her bag. “Right. Famous Scully who works with the FBI’s number-one crackpot. I’m glad you’ve heard of me.”

Before Dana could get up, Starling reached out and touched her arm. “Wait,” she said.

Dana stopped and turned, looking the other agent full in the face. “What?”

Starling’s gaze was steady. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t have said that. You’re a hell of an agent and your work is good, alien abductions or not.”

Slowly, Dana set her bag back down. It came to rest against her foot and she absently kicked it gently to rest against the bar. “Thanks,” she said. “I’m sure you never have to deal with things like…that.”

“You know what they call me, right?” Starling asked, a touch of bitterness in her voice. “When they think I’m not listening, it’s ‘Cannibal Clarice.’”

“No way,” Dana said. “They shouldn’t.” 

Starling shrugged. “They do,” she said. 

There was a lull in conversation while Sterling ordered a drink and Dana called for fries and cheeseburgers for both of them. The noise level in the bar was steadily rising—more people were coming in now. Dana wasn’t sure what to say, really. Clarice Starling, the darling of the FBI, knew her name. It was sort of a shock. Was Dana really so famous—or, well, infamous?

“How is it, really, working on the X-Files?” Starling asked when her drink arrived. 

“Not much different from working anywhere else,” Dana said frankly. “You’re criminology, right?”

Starling nodded. “I heard you were, too.”

Dana picked at her fries. “You know what reports are like,” she said. “I still have to profile the killer, whether it’s a lizard-man or a plain old serial killer. The process is the same. I just spend a lot more time wondering about the serious possibility of the victim being an alien abductee.”

“I’d like that,” Starling said reflectively. “A little more interesting than profiling serial killers, I bet.”

“Sort of,” Dana said. She spun her barstool a little so she could see Starling better. “A serial killer is still a serial killer, whether he’s lived for a century or not.”

Starling laughed. “Really? A killer who lived for a century?”

Dana nodded. “He ate livers,” she said, and took a bite of her burger with great gusto.

For a second, Starling’s eyes went very distant. Glass in hand, she just stopped and stared past Dana, watching something that Dana doubted anyone else could see. “Bet he liked them with a nice Chianti,” she said softly.

Another lull hit, and Dana let it go. She watched Starling in between nibbles of her fries. There was a story there, and Dana would bet that it had to do with the Buffalo Bill case, the one that made Clarice Starling famous. She knew the story: that Starling had to consult with Hannibal Lecter, the infamous cannibal psychologist, in order to successfully profile and track down the killer. That wasn’t really the type of thing that you could just let go. It was just weird, to see that distant expression on the face of someone who’d only just graduated the Academy two years ago. Starling was younger than Dana. She shouldn’t have horror stories already.

“I know I already asked this, but really, what’s it like working on the X-Files?” Starling asked after a few minutes.

“It’s good,” Dana surprised herself by saying. She thought about some of the goofier things she’d done since moving into the basement office and shook her head. “I get to travel often and I’m not stuck behind a desk. Unbelievable or not, I get to see all the interesting cases before anyone else. It’s very rewarding, sometimes, just as much as any other job in the Bureau. We help people.”

Starling smiled. “Wish I could work in your office,” she said. “Bet there’s a lot you aren’t saying.”

It was probably best not to talk about the time that Mulder became convinced that a particular brand of radio had a direct line to the lizard-people who lived in the subways. That whole case had been weird enough, what with the international crime ring dedicated to smuggling rare reptiles, but there weren’t lizard-people involved. 

Well, not directly, anyway.

Dana shook off those thoughts and smiled back at Starling. “It’s all very classified,” she said, rolling her eyes ostentatiously. “If I told you…”

“You’d have to kill me,” Starling supplied. 

“Precisely,” Dana said. “I’m sure all your work is completely classified, too.”

Starling tossed her hair. “Of course. But only the juiciest stuff,” she said.

By now, Dana felt familiar enough to lightly kick Starling’s shin. “And I’m sure you can’t be bribed in any way to share that ‘stuff’,” she said. 

“You couldn’t possibly bribe me. Though I’ve always wondered about whether or not Bigfoot really exists.” Starling winked and took a sip of her drink.

Dana waited until Starling’s glass was tipped back to say, “There was that time in New Jersey…”

Starling choked on her drink, eyes popping wide and slamming the glass back down on the bar. “I was joking!” she spluttered.

Practically cackling, Dana pushed the napkin dispenser over to the other woman. “It turned out not to be Bigfoot, if that’s any consolation,” she said. “Just a couple of feral people. Still fascinating, but not quite the anthropological discovery of the century.”

Starling mopped up the spill, with Dana’s help. “I’d love to go along on a case like that,” she said, almost wistful. 

“I could put in a word with your supervisor,” Dana offered. “I’d be glad to have you.”

“Thanks, but no,” Starling said. She heaped the napkins in her half-empty basket, fiddling with their corners and edges. “I doubt they’d want the FBI’s golden calf associated with the X-Files.”

Dana pursed her lips. “I could pitch it as an exercise in psychological profiling,” she said.

“Profiling the perp or profiling you and Mulder?” At Dana’s irritated squint, Starling raised her hands in surrender. “I was kidding.”

“I know,” Dana said. She stared into the dregs of her drink. Melancholy crept back, reminding her that— “People usually are.”

“You really aren’t very happy, are you?” Starling asked.

Dana dragged a fry through the last of her ketchup. “No,” she said after a moment. “And I don’t think you are, either.”

“Got it in one,” Starling said. She reached over and knocked her glass against Dana’s; there was a hollow clink. “Here’s to the FBI’s Least Wanted.”

“Here’s to us,” Dana said, and drained her glass.

While they’d been sitting at the bar, it had grown really dark outside. The evening crowd was at its peak. People chattered and laughed all around, pressing in close out of sheer necessity. Dana glanced at her watch. Yes, about seven o’clock—probably time to get going. 

“I’d—” she started, but Starling started talking at the same moment. 

“I think—”

They stopped, stared at each other, and giggled helplessly like overtired small children. “You first,” Dana said.

“I think I should get going,” Starling said. 

“I was about to say the same thing.” Dana waved at one of the two bartenders, calling for their checks. Starling handed quickly-counted cash and change to the bartender and Dana followed suit. She had to dig in her pockets for anything other than quarters, which she lately kept in heavy supply because of the number of times she had to make calls from pay phones.

They walked out together. Since it was Friday night in the metro area, it wasn’t like the streets were empty, but no one disturbed them as they tarried at the curb. 

“Thanks for sitting with me, Agent Starling,” Dana said, pulling her jacket tighter against the night chill.

“Any time,” Starling said sincerely. “And call me Clarice, would you?”

“All right,” Dana said. “Same to you. Call me Dana.”

Starling—no, Clarice—smiled. “Okay, Dana. Good luck with catching those little green men.”

“They’re grey, I’ll have you know,” Dana said with great dignity. Clarice laughed. “Good luck with your serial killers.”

“I’d love to meet you again sometime,” Clarice said, half shyly, scuffing the toe of her shoe against the curb. 

Dana pulled a small notepad from her pocket, writing down her phone number—and, as an afterthought, the office number. She tore off the page and pushed it into Clarice’s hand. “The first one is my house phone. The other one’s the office phone,” she said. “If you ever want to get in on a case, or just go out for drinks…”

“I’ll call,” Clarice said. She pulled Dana’s notebook and pen out of her hands, scrawling a number messily across the paper. “Just my house phone, sorry.”

“I understand,” Dana said. She tucked the notebook securely into her pocket again and held out her hand. “It was good to meet you, Clarice.”

Clarice shook Dana’s hand firmly. “Good to meet you too. Good night, Dana.”

“Have a lovely evening,” Dana said, turning to go. She had parked six blocks away, so it was a bit of a hike. Even so, before hurrying over the crosswalk, she looked over her shoulder. Clarice Starling was just a distant figure now, vanishing into evening under the street.

Maybe she’d go out again, sometime. 

And next time, she wouldn’t need to go alone.


End file.
